Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:48, 1 December 2023

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The current trustees occupying "community-selected" seats are Rosiestep, Laurentius, Victoria and Pundit. The Wikimedia Foundation's Lead Manager of Trust and Safety is Jan Eissfeldt.

This page is semi-protected and you will not be able to leave a message here unless you are a registered editor. Instead, you can leave a message here

This is Jimbo Wales's talk page, where you can send them messages and comments.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: Index, Index, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252Auto-archiving period: 10 days

This user talk page might be watched by friendly talk page stalkers, which means that someone other than me might reply to your query. Their input is welcome and their help with messages that I cannot reply to quickly is appreciated.

This talkpage has been mentioned by a media organization: Matthew Gault (8 December 2021). "Misplaced Pages Editors Very Mad About Jimmy Wales' NFT of a Misplaced Pages Edit". Vice Media. The trouble began when Wales posted an announcement about the auction on his user talk page—a kind of message board where users communicate directly with each other.

Village pumps

policy

tech

proposals

idea lab

WMF

misc

• AI-generated images depicting living people
• Blocks for promotional activity outside of mainspace
• Voluntary RfAs after resignation
• Proposed rewrite of WP:BITE
• LLM/chatbot comments in discussions

• view
• edit
• history
• watch
• archive
• talk
• purge

The Signpost: 20 November 2023

• In the media: Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup

• News and notes: Update on Wikimedia's financial health

• Traffic report: If it bleeds, it leads

• Recent research: Canceling disputes as the real function of ArbCom

• Wikimania: Wikimania 2024 scholarships

Another Endowment question

Currently the Foundation has about $255 million in cash and short-term investments, while the Endowment has about $119 million in long-term investments. Should the Foundation transfer some to the Endowment to presumably secure a larger and safer return? If so, how much? Presumably this would be done after getting the Endowment out of Tides; so my third question is when is that expected to occur? Sandizer (talk) 19:14, 21 November 2023 (UTC)11

We are entirely out of Tides. This page details the current investment policy.

The question of moving money from WMF and into the endowment is different from the question of how money currently with WMF should be invested. I think there's merit in the idea of periodically moving money out of WMF and into the Endowment, with the caveat that we shouldn't run a high risk that WMF might need to dip into the Endowment for an emergency caused by running too short a balance within WMF. I think that using the Endowment to cover shortfalls shouldn't be something that anyone gets comfortable with.

The question of whether all of WMF's money that's currently in cash and short-term investments should stay that way is also valid. One way that I would approach the question is to start to match the duration of some of the investments to the expected timeline of expenditures, as opposed to simply blindly moving into equity or longterm bonds. (When interest rates rise, long term bonds get crushed, but if the intention is to hold some securities to maturity to meet some expected future expenditure, the the interest rate risk is less relevant. Measures of duration serve a similar function.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Jimmy, regarding the Sandizer inquiry, I note that the Investment Policy you linked us to mentions this:

"The Wikimedia Endowment was invested through the Tides Foundation, which is committed to achieving an impact-driven portfolio. The Wikimedia Endowment is invested only in funds that had been reviewed by Tides and meet its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors."

Does that mean that the Wikimedia Endowment continues to invest ONLY in Tides-approved ESG investments? If so, why?! Wikimedia has its own unique objectives, specifically pertaining to the Open Knowledge movement. Although impact-driven investing generally results in lower returns and can have higher risks, it sounds like the WMF Endowment has already committed to that in its Investment Policy. Let's take that as a given; however, an impact-driven portfolio consistent with the goals of the Open Knowledge movement are different than those of Tides. Tides is a donor-fund aggregator whose mission aligns with its investment policy:

“Tides conduct its investment management process with the recognition that its responsibility includes not only the traditional goals of maximizing return and minimizing risk, but also a focus on utilizing its investment capital to achieve a world of shared prosperity and social justice, founded on equality and human rights, a sustainable environment, healthy individuals and communities, and quality education.”

WMF Endowment's impact-driven investing should NOT be exclusively determined by the goals and values of Tides as stated above. We are not a Tides subsidiary.

I see that the choice of investment holdings is based on Morningstar Sustainability Ratings per your linked description. Why are we using the identical percentage distribution as Tides. Was there a review conducted where that was determined to be best for our Foundation money?

I note that 10% of our Endowment will be invested in "funds rated a “three-E;” these funds have an ESG mandate and their lower rating may be due to companies in the fund not being covered by Morningstar analysts (especially in ex-US markets)". That doesn't sound good! Why would we want any of our money to be invested in overseas companies that Morningstar analysts don't even cover? Also, 10% of the Endowment will be invested in "funds that are not rated by Morningstar but have an ESG mandate". So, that means that as of the most current financial statement, approximately $10 million of Endowment funds will be holdings of ESG mutual funds that aren't even rated by Morningstar and another $10 million might be invested in overseas companies that Morningstar doesn't rate. An ESG mandate is not well-defined, i.e. social justice, sustainable environment, and quality education can mean one thing to Tides and something else entirely to others. It would be unfortunate if $20 million of WMF Endowment money were invested with so little control by the WMF.--FeralOink (talk) 23:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Dear FeralOink, could we please dial down the heat substantially?

Of course we are not a Tides subsidiary and it's very odd for you to point is out in Bold text. No one is behaving as if we are a Tides subsidiary, and I can tell you that at the board meetings, I have not heard any board member voice any opinion that would even remotely suggest that we should blindly defer to Tides on anything. The particular ESG ratings we use have nothing to do with Tides. They are ratings developed by Morningstar, Inc.. In terms of the specific allocations they were not determined by Tides, and continue - as the page said - to be determined (ultimately) by the endowment board: "The Wikimedia Endowment will revisit this allocation periodically to make sure it delivers appropriate risk-adjusted returns.".

Now that we've got the Tides question out of the way, we can of course discuss some questions about the allocation. I don't think it is automatically a given that ESG funds will deliver a lower return (I used to believe this, but the actual evidence is mixed at best), but you seem to accept that it is something we have chosen to do. But you had a stronger question about the international component. Diversification is an important part of wise investment strategy, and investment in non-US companies is a part of that. It is just generally a fact that Morningstar doesn't have as strong coverage of non-US markets, but it isn't something that I would see as especially problematic.

In my own personal retirement savings accounts, I allocate a percentage to international markets through low-cost Vanguard index funds. I think it's a reasonable thing to do.

Implicit in your question, though you didn't actually ask it in this way, is whether or not we should adopted some kind of modified ESG strategy where we specifically invest in companies that are particularly aligned with our mission - let's imagine here things like open source software companies, educational resource companies who use free licenses, etc. I think that's an interesting idea although there are not likely to be any ESG ratings in existence of such a thing, nor any dedicated index funds. It would be a pretty wild departure from normal practice if we got into the business of picking individual stocks, and of course would raise all sorts of potential issues.

Below, I see a question about the percentage of cash and cash equivalents, and my own personal view is that cash should probably only be held for short periods "transactionally" you might call it, as money is entering the endowment or is scheduled to depart (grants, expenses) in a reasonably short time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:51, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Sandizer. I don't think that the Endowment funds and Wikimedia Foundation funds are readily transferable, i.e. the Endowment isn't generally intended for supporting day-to-day operating costs of WMF. See Endowment FAQ item 2:

"During times of prosperity, the Wikimedia Endowment will serve as a springboard for growth and innovation. During tough economic times, the Endowment will help fund the most critical operations that keep the Wikimedia projects functioning.

Jimmy's reply to you is good, as it shows that he is cognizant of responsible corporate governance practices:

"I think that using the Endowment to cover shortfalls shouldn't be something that anyone gets comfortable with."

Your point is well-taken though. I too noticed that 2023 WMF salaries and benefits total over $100 million per year, a 20% year-on-year increase, whereas server costs are merely $3.1 million, up from $2.7 million last year.--FeralOink (talk) 23:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

@FeralOink: What is your opinion of the optimal ratio of Foundation cash and investments to Endowment investments?

I also want to ask your opinion about the Morningstar ESG ratings. They seem to be a very good idea financially, but I wonder how much of that is due to a circular self-fulfilling prophesy due to their enormous influence over fund flows. I'm not sure it's a great idea to have put 500 Toronto analysts in charge of such a large fraction of the world's equity and corporate debt markets. However, I used to be far more skeptical before Morningstar acquired Sustainalytics, back when the weights of the issues contributing to the ESG rating were proprietary whereas now they publish them on page 3 of their reports:

If you were Head of ESG Products at Sustainalytics, how would you weight those issues?

As for Foundation staff and budget allocation, my greatest hope is they keep adding more engineers assigned to the Community Wishlist, which has been a breath of fresh air recently. I think governance issues, such as why the Foundation is committed to so much secrecy that they can't lead a letter writing campaign for the jailed Aribic Misplaced Pages admins, are far more important than staff vs. server infrastructure spending. Sandizer (talk) 04:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Misplaced Pages arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Censorship of Misplaced Pages

I am a participant of the Russian Misplaced Pages, my name is User:Рождествин.

I have been editing Misplaced Pages since 2008. Currently, there is a situation developing in the Russian Misplaced Pages that greatly concerns me. Below, I will provide a chronology of events and highlight the aspects that are causing my concern.

On November 6, 2023, I wrote an article about the head of an international drug cartel operating in Russia, Ukraine, and possibly Europe - Yegor Burkin:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/%D0%91%D1%83%D1%80%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%95%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80_%D0%92%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 (en version have been deleted too https://en.wikipedia.org/Egor_Burkin)

Three hours later, the article was deleted by a user, whose name I don't mention deliberately as a duplicate copy of a previously created and deleted article. It was removed without any discussion and even without notifying me This was not the correct resolution, as the article was written by me from scratch and had no relation to the previous version.

The article complied with the rules of the Russian section, so I raised the issue with the administrator forum to inquire about the reasons for such behavior. Administrator Lesless responded to me, stating that someone (not me, although I am the author of the article) received real-life threats related to this article. Due to this reason, the name of the user who deleted the article has been changed, the account was blocked (at that time), and any mention of this article started to be removed from Russian Misplaced Pages. A few minutes later, Oversighter Q-bit array deleted the entire edit history on the administrator forum with corresponding section (plz see Screenshot 1 as attached file).

Plz see the diff link https://ru.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Википедия%3AЗапросы_к_администраторам&diff=134040347&oldid=134040320

In a private email conversation, Administrator Lesless informed me that the article was removed for security reasons, and I should understand the danger. The administrator informed me that this was a private initiative of one or several administrators, who did not receive any instructions or directives from third parties, and strongly requested that I refrain from mentioning this incident further, citing the Foundation and the Foundation's legal department being aware of it. Currently, the article is protected from creation. All mentions of the discussion on this matter have been removed and hidden from the administrator forum and the article restoration page.

I acknowledge that the criminal organization in question is well-known and possesses significant resources. However, the situation where real-world threats result in the removal of an article can set a terrible precedent, which could have enormous consequences for Misplaced Pages: it would be sufficient to publish a threat towards the editors of a particular article to have it completely eradicated. This situation is reminiscent of an incident in the French version when an article was removed under pressure from intelligence services. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#France ) I sincerely hope, although I cannot be entirely certain, that the administrators of the Russian Misplaced Pages are not operating under external pressure.

I consider this issue to require the attention of the Foundation, and I kindly ask you to clarify the following matters:

Can information about a character who is formally significant according to the criteria of notability be removed based on the decision of administrators of a regional project due to real-life threats received by some participants related to this article? --Рождествин (talk) 15:53, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

• User:Рождествин does not describe the situation quite correctly. I can only confirm that on resources external to Misplaced Pages, measures of physical coercion against Misplaced Pages users were discussed. The administrators of the Russian WP took measures. We also asked User:Рождествин to draw less attention to the situation, since the threat of de-anonymization of the users had not disappeared, but the participant, as we see, did not listen. Lesless (talk) 05:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

• @Рождествин: If you want to engage the Foundation this page at Meta provides various ways of contacting them depending on the situation. MarcGarver (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

  I do not want engage Fond. Russian wikipedia administrator told me that Fond had already been engaged. But I have grounds for doubt in his words. I had already sent a letter to legal@wikimedia.org a week ago but they didn't answer. Рождествин (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There are two possible issues. First, per People accused of crime, people cannot be called criminals unless they have been convicted. Second, while I can find many articles about the alleged cartel in news outlets, none of them are considered reliable sources. See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, which rates the reliablity of Sputnik and other publications that have covered the story.

Can you provide any reliable sources that extensively document the topic? If not, it lacks notability for its own article. TFD (talk) 16:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Please read my message attentively before answering. I don't complain about the deletion of article. I complain on reason of deletion. The reason is (by the words of russian wikipedia administratos) threats for users in real life. Article was deleted because of outside pressure. Is it clear enaugh now? Рождествин (talk) 22:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

And I am not a newcomer. I have been editing wiki sience 2008, so there is no need to tell me about reliable sources. Рождествин (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not allowed even discuss this article in russian wikipedia. Even mention it on forums. As I said, because of the threats against users. Do you understand the subject or I have to find another words to explain situation? Рождествин (talk) 22:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

There is no correct forum to do anything that might lead to people being harmed. It is unlikely that anyone here can judge whether harm may occur but that is going to make most of us decide to leave it to the current system. Raising a shit storm because you can might be an abuse of Misplaced Pages. What are you hoping to achieve? Not every wrong can be righted and while it might be ok to courageously put your own health on the line, it is not so good when doing that for others. Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

If the user reports stuff from mainstream media, there should be no harm. Misplaced Pages:WikiLeaks is not part of Misplaced Pages. If the user publishes novel allegations, they are banned as WP:OR. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:52, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

What I want achieve? It is not clear from my first message? I want to know is this agree with wikipedia rules when someone said to users I will kill you if you wouldn't delete article about me and administrators realy delete article. Isn't it a kind of censorship? But if it is realy decision of Fond as I had been told in ruwiki it's ok, it's not my problem. But untill this moment has been clarified I have reasons to think that Fond wasn't informed about this case. Рождествин (talk) 02:48, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages pages referenced by the press